


From Bones and Ashes

by ScriptaManent



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Pre-Canon, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 03:19:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17541662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScriptaManent/pseuds/ScriptaManent
Summary: Kevin has a mental breakdown during the weeks following his injury. He’s “safe” with coach Wymack but he can’t do anything, he can’t even hold a fucking glass and it pisses him off. He knows Riko is out there, looking for him (well, not yet, but he knows he will eventually). Kevin drinks to forget but his mind keeps going back to Riko, to that night when he broke his hand and when Jean collected him, to that night he got out of Evermore without looking back, and to that night he knocked on Wymack’s door, a living mess barely able to think straight.Then, without even a knock on the door, a first glimpse of hope manages to get him back to the surface, at least for a while.





	From Bones and Ashes

Kevin stared at the bottom of his glass as if it could swallow him whole. His pale fingers, curled around the transparent glass, were reflected in the few droplets of vodka that remained. He didn’t know whether it was the alcohol or his mental state that was making the room spin around him, but he wasn’t lucid enough to care anyway.

Kevin Day was finished. It had taken Riko less than two minutes to annihilate him, to reduce him to nothing.

“ _You’re never going to play again, you know,_ ” Jean had said with a cold, detached look at Kevin’s broken -destroyed- hand. His words hadn’t stopped echoing in the back of Kevin’s mind since then.

Without Exy, he was nothing. He was nobody. His whole world had been shattered, had collapsed in a Big Bang-like explosion, and now all that he could see was dark and blurry - or maybe it was the treacherous tears sneakily running down his cheeks.

Eventually, Kevin stood up to pour himself another drink. The bottle of expensive vodka was only two steps away, and he didn’t mind drinking it straight. The stronger it was, the higher the chances of him having a blackout were, and God knew how much Kevin wanted to forget about everything.

He lifted the glass with his left hand without thinking. The pain made him open his fingers with a scream and he immediately pulled his injured hand to his chest, covering it cautiously. Mad at himself, desperate and broken, Kevin watched as the glass fell down in slow-motion. It broke into a million pieces as soon as it met the wooden floor, just like his life.

 

_Riko had managed to keep a straight face until the doors of the locker room closed behind him. The place was dark and wet, and Kevin hadn’t bothered switching the light on._

_He felt his partner’s glare on his neck and turned to face him, only to meet the cruel aura of a predator done with toying with an insignificant prey. The aura of an alpha wolf about to shred the omega into bleeding pieces._

_“You think you can outshine me?” Riko exploded under his breath, careful to keep his voice low and still so threatening that Kevin felt his body shake. “You are nothing without me. Not even a shadow, you are_ worthless! _”_

_Riko’s features were twisted up with anger, his dark eyes nothing but madness and rage._

_His fist hit Kevin’s jaw without him being able to do anything about it, and the next second it was Riko’s Exy helmet that struck Kevin’s temple, sending him straight into the nearest locker. Kevin’s vision blurred and darkened, he couldn’t hear anything over the shrill noise ringing in his head._

_Riko’s foot smashed his ribs and Kevin realised he was lying on the floor. He tried to get to his hands and knees, begging for mercy, apologizing for whatever Riko blamed him for, but Riko wasn’t one to believe in mercy._

_“Please…” was the last thing Kevin managed to pronounce before the pain was too strong and his voice died in his throat._

_He felt Riko’s foot stomping his left hand, again and again. A flash of raw, searing pain. The smell of blood. A door slamming shut. Then, nothing._

 

_It was the red shard of pain that made Kevin regain consciousness. He opened his eyelids to pale eyes filled with dread. A number. Three. It was Jean._

_“You are a mess,” the man said without any inch of compassion - it wasn’t a feeling the Ravens knew of._

_Kevin stifled a cry when Jean brushed his hand with a scowl, touching the bones that were oddly pointing out of the skin._

_“You’re never going to play again, you know.”_

_It was a sentence worse than death. Kevin passed out again._

 

_When he woke up again, he was still in the locker room, sitting on the ground, his back to a wall. Jean was beside him, what was left of Kevin’s hand into his, trying to clear it of the blood to get a better look. Kevin was too numb to react._

 

He would never play again, never get to feel the weight of a racket in his hand, the strength of the ball hitting the net. The loud sound of the buzz as the goal flashed red just after he scored.

It was all over, and Kevin couldn’t do anything about it.

The glass shards were all over the floor but it felt like they were making their way into his bare chest. He couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, and he realised he was falling backward only when the ceiling entered his line of sight and his head hit the soft sheets.

He could hear Riko’s laughter in his ears, he could feel his foot stomping his hand again, and Kevin wanted to yell, he wanted to scream, he wanted to forget and to cry and to say sorry at the same time. But most of all, Kevin wanted it to be over. He was a ghost, an empty shell. He was nobody, he was nothing, he was worthless, and soon, oh so soon Riko would find him and bring him back to the Nest, and he would finish what he had started that day in the locker room.

“Get up and stop emptying my cupboards or I swear I’m gonna put a lock on the minibar.”

Coach Wymack’s voice brought Kevin back to reality, and the young athlete’s eyes lingered on the man standing in front of him. He looked for something in the man, anything that would remind him of himself, any feature, any gesture, but he knew that he could stare at Wymack for days without finding anything. And yet, this man standing in front of him, two empty glasses in his hand and a worried frown on his face, somehow happened to be his father, even if the coach wasn’t yet aware of it.

Kevin’s eyes locked with Wymack’s and suddenly he was back to the night of the Christmas banquet, only a few weeks ago - but it felt like it had happened in another life, or maybe in a nightmare. In his worst nightmare, to be precise: the one he was living and that he couldn’t run away from.

 

_“If you were ever friends with me, get him out of my room. I can’t see him right now.”_

_The light in Jean’s eyes flickered, uncertain, and for a brief moment, Kevin could see him weighing the pros and the cons, trying to understand Kevin’s train of thought and what he had in mind. Hopefully, Jean wouldn’t get it. If he did, Kevin was lost._

_Eventually, Jean nodded, so slowly that it was a miracle Kevin had even caught the movement. Relief washed through the injured Raven when his teammate finally left the room._

_In spite of the aching pain, Kevin took in a deep breath and propped himself up. He stumbled his way to the room he shared with Riko, listening to the quietest noises that would betray the other’s return, doing his best to remain unseen. His gaze wandered on the room, lingered on the books he was leaving behind him, on the letter he knew was hidden in one of them. All was red and black and dark._

_Footsteps echoed in the corridor upstairs._

_Kevin hushed his racing heart and went for his coat. Fortunately, it was long enough to keep him warm, and dark enough to allow him to melt in the shadows - and to hide the blood that was tainting his clothes and his skin. He patted his chest with his good hand - the right one, the one which was not broken -, and felt the reassuring weight of his wallet against his palm._

_The next minute, he was walking towards the door, only one thing in mind: surviving._

 

_The night was cold, but it was a bliss against the fever that was threatening to take him down. Kevin wasn’t sure how he had managed to make it to Wymack’s hotel room, nor how he had even got the number right - Had he asked? Had he remembered it from somewhere? - but there he was._

_He knocked on the door and the movement nearly made him faint, he was becoming weaker and weaker as time passed and he didn’t know how long he would still handle it. He had lost too much blood and had spent too much energy. Of course, the pain wasn’t helping._

_“Do you even have an idea of what time it is?!” Wymack grumbled as he opened the door ten seconds later, probably expecting to find one of his Foxes on the threshold._

_He paused, frozen, and took a brief look at Kevin before deciding that he could let him in. He moved aside and pointed his chin towards the bed that was taking up a fair half of the room._

_What he saw in Kevin, the young man didn’t know, and to be honest he probably didn’t want to. Barely alive, working on autopilot, unable to think straight, Kevin was a broken mess, but he had been smart enough to ask for help, and Wymack had never refused to help anyone who deserved it. Not even when he knew it was a lost cause._

_As soon as he sat down, Kevin broke down again, overwhelmed by emotions and exhaustion. The last thing he heard was Wymack calling someone and a woman’s voice letting out a horrified scream._

 

When Kevin got back to reality, he was half lying on the sofa in Wymack’s apartment. The bottle of vodka had disappeared and there was no longer any trace of the glass he had dropped on the floor. Instead, a full plastic cup of water had been placed on the coffee table.

Kevin closed his eyes as quickly as he had opened them only to open them again when he heard a weird sound coming from the nearby kitchen.

Slowly, he got to his feet and walked to the source of the noise. He was already expecting Riko to be there, waiting for him, a cruel grin on his face and hate in his eyes. Kevin would go with him without thinking twice. He knew his place.

However, the kitchen was empty of any human presence, and Kevin noted that Wymack had indeed locked the cupboards that contained alcohol, save for one that had been left wide open.

“Oh, if it isn’t the famous Kevin Day!” a cheery voice declared in his back, startling him. The tone sent shivers down Kevin’s spine, yet he didn’t have to look to know who had spoken. The only man to have ever turned down the Ravens’ offer: Andrew J. Minyard.

Kevin turned around slowly, distrustful. It wasn’t the first time Andrew and him had stood in the same room, but last time hadn’t really been what one would call a pleasure. The shorter one looked high as hell, and Kevin wasn’t sure whether it was good news for him.

“What are you doing up here?” Andrew continued, his unsettling grin still on his face. “Drinking? Crying? _Hiding_?”

His smile was getting wider with each word, but fortunately Kevin was sober enough to know better than shutting Andrew’s mouth with his fist.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Kevin asked back, defensive and definitely not at his best “Does your coach even know you have the keys to his apartment?”

Andrew smiled again, as if Kevin had just told the funniest joke.

“Kevin, oh Kevin. Has Riko never told you how impolite it is to answer someone’s questions with another question?”

“What do you want?” Kevin insisted, not impressed. Maybe he did have a death wish, after all.

The playful smile on Andrew’s face disappeared for one second during which he feigned thinking about it. When his eyes landed back on Kevin, the Fox flashed a warmless smile.

“I want to know if you’re gonna be a problem.”

Kevin studied him for a few seconds, tensed, then he pulled a chair and sat down with a sigh. Even now, he couldn’t look at Andrew without thinking about how much of a wasted potential this guy was. Even Riko wanted him to be part of his Perfect Court.

_Riko_.

Kevin started shaking uncontrollably, his working hand grasping the edge of the table. He could feel the weight of Andrew’s stare on him, but he couldn’t bring himself to breathe calmly. He was screwed, Riko would make his life hell, and he would do the same to anyone who would get in his way.

Cold fingers pressed the skin on each side of Kevin’s neck, painfully bringing him back to reality, once more.

“Breathe,” Andrew ordered, and Kevin did as he was told, because it was what he was good at. “Riko is the one who did that to you, isn’t he?” the blond man continued, so serious that the contrast took Kevin’s breath away again. “I think I told you to breathe.”

“People were starting to think that Riko was pulling me back. The master didn’t like the idea. Neither did Riko,” the former Raven finally admitted, his veiled gaze wandering to his left hand. “He couldn’t let me be better than him, even in people’s minds. He has always been first. I’m a second, I’ll always be.”

Andrew’s fingers released him, and the Fox stared at him, unreadable, for a long minute.

“And I thought you could be interesting,” the blond eventually declared, sounding highly disappointed. “Isn’t it weird just how deceiving expectations can be?”

A smirk bloomed on his lips when Kevin frowned at that.

 

It took Kevin two more weeks and all the will in the world to get out of Wymack’s apartment and walk into the Foxhole Court. He had hardly been there for ten minutes that he already felt dizzy. Everything was orange: the walls, the gears, the benches, _even the toilets_ , and when he blinked, Kevin could still see fox paws printed under his eyelids. Nevertheless, the call of the court was too strong, and Kevin knew that if he had to spend the rest of his life surrounded by orange walls in order to hold an Exy racket in his hand, he would sign without thinking twice.

Wymack glanced at the young man with interest. Beside him wasn’t standing a severely injured athlete whose career had come to a brutal end, but a determined rising star who would do anything to achieve his goals. It was a heartwarming sight that he would never get enough of.

“We must have extra clothes for you in the storeroom,” the coach said with the hint of a smile. “And one or two unused rackets. You think you can handle a few shots?”

Kevin gazed at Wymack like he was holding the world out for him to take.

 

Less than two months later, Kevin Day was back on the court, a racket in his right hand. He had traded paperwork for the Foxes’ colours, and even if he would never admit it, orange suited him way better than black. For once in his life, he looked alive. Alive and fierce.

“Who knew you actually had balls?” Andrew snapped once they were the only two left in the locker room, exaggerated surprise on his face.

Though, Kevin could see that he genuinely meant it. It looked like the goalie had eventually grown a bit of interest for the striker, and it was Kevin’s only opening, his one chance to get what he wanted from Andrew.

“Train me,” he said out of the blue.

Andrew raised an eyebrow, all traces of his smile vanished.

“Train me, train with me, I don’t care,” Kevin continued, staring straight into the other’s eyes. “You obviously had fun and you know it, you’re _talented_ , you can’t just--”

“Don’t.” Andrew cut him off dryly, openly threatening. They were not going to have this conversation again.

However, Kevin went on, against all basic safety rules. “Playing against you is entertaining, but it could be thriving if you didn’t have those drugs in your system. I know it, and _you_ know it.”

Andrew had stopped listening the second Kevin had opened his mouth again, and he was already heading for the exit. He was halfway through the room when the former Raven spoke again.

“Let’s make a deal.”

The footsteps stopped suddenly but Kevin didn’t lose track of his thoughts. The next words would be decisive. He had to think fast.

“When you come off these drugs, I’ll be there. I’ll help you. I’ll give you something worth living for.”

Andrew’s shoulders shook when he burst out laughing, and he even had to wipe tears out of his eyes when he turned to face the other again. “Bold of you to assume I’m even interested.”

“I mean it”, Kevin insisted, and he knew it was the truth. “I will give you something to build your life around. Be it Exy or flower-picking, I don’t care. I told you you’re worth it, I won’t take my words back.”

Andrew leant on his racket and raised his chin to study Kevin. His face displayed a bored expression, as always, but Kevin knew he was deciding whether or not he could trust his words. His gaze stopped on the number tattooed on Kevin’s cheek. “And what do you want in exchange?”

The other kept his expression still, unwilling to give anything away. “What can you give me?”

It didn’t take more than a second for Andrew to answer, no hint of a smile on his face this time, as if he had already considered the option and made his decision.

“I will protect you from Riko,” Andrew said solemnly. It sounded like the promise of a future to come, tasted like a new life rising from the smoldering ashes of a phoenix.

In the dim light of the locker room and surrounded by orange walls and white paw prints, against all odds, Kevin believed him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably my best writing so far, I hope you loved it as much as I loved writing it.  
> Thank you @foxsmoulder, my partner in crime, and @IKnowWhoYouAre_Damianos for the beta-reading and opinions.


End file.
